The invention relates, in part, to talking books. A wide variety of talking books are known and are disclosed in numerous U.S. Patents including at least U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,809,246; 5,356,292; 5,417,575; 5,419,705; 5,494,292; 5,645,436; and 5,803,748. On the other hand, a number of other U.S. Patents disclose different technology and schemes for generating speech from toy figures, i.e. dolls, plush animals, etc. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,752,880 and 5,636,994 disclose wireless control of the speech and/or action of a toy figure by a conventional, personal computer with appropriate software. U.S. Pat. No. 4,846,693 discloses a system in which toy figure control signals are imbedded in the video signal of a video tape and are removed by a controller associated with the video tape player and transmitted without wires to a toy figure having a receiver configured to receive them. The signals cause the figure to generate speech which relates to the video program being generated. A hand controller is provided to permit additional signals to be sent to the toy by the user for the toy to synthesize its own speech and other sounds. U.S. Pat. No. 5,733,131 discloses a system employing pager transmission technology for simultaneous remote control of several widely spaced devices which may be toy figures. The system can cause the same message to be generated by all receiving devices or specific messages to be generated by different devices.
It is believed that a new and different form of play and educational activity can be created by combining and coordinating speech generation in a book and a toy figure to provide an interactive companion/playmate to the child using the book and an unusual remote control for the toy figure.